In Gentle Slumber
by V.M. Bell
Summary: The first time James kissed Lily, they were in their fifth year and she was a little bit on the drunk side of tipsy.


**In Gentle Slumber**

The first time James kissed Lily, they were in their fifth year and she was a little bit on the drunk side of tipsy. As a Gryffindor prefect, she should have been enforcing the rules, not breaking them, but bugger the rules, she thought, seeking solace in a bottle of firewhiskey cleverly Transfigured into butterbeer by a classmate far more skilled at the subject than she. A particularly nasty six foot-long Potions essay -- one that had required a full two weeks of research and writing -- had been due that day, and Lily thought that she had never been happier than in the moment she passed that crinkled scroll of parchment into Slughorn's hands. In her slightly addled mind, the celebration was decidedly justified.

It was late on a Friday night, although, technically, it was already early Saturday morning, and, in the darkness of the early morning, she had only the dying embers of the fire to keep her company. At some point in the middle of the night's blur, she heard the portrait door swing open. Bleary-eyed, she stood up, swaying somewhat, and looked in that general direction. She blinked a few times at the round spectacles and tousled black hair before groaning aloud. "It's not you, is it, Potter?" she asked.

"I was wondering when you'd notice me, Evans." She heard footsteps approaching her, and, suddenly, she found herself in the arms of the boy she loathed most at Hogwarts, but, then, she was hardly aware of what was happening. "Whoa, is everything all right? Did you suddenly change your mind about me?"

His yell was harsh and loud in her ear, and she pushed him away. "Fuck off, Potter. I would never change my mind about you."

"And everything is right with the world again."

"Of course it is." She groped the air a few times before finally picking up her drink and taking a deep swig from it. "Why would it not be?"

"Evans, what are you drinking?"

"Why do you care?" He snatched the bottle from her hand, which was not difficult to do with Lily in the state that she was in.

"Butterbeer?" he asked.

"What else would it be?"

"Oh, right, _that_ sort of butterbeer."

"Give it back."

"Evans, even Sirius doesn't get this pissed when he goes to Quidditch matches. You've had enough to drink for tonight."

"Give it back, you arse!"

"No, my low-tolerance flower."

Lily lunged for the bottle, but James had already tossed it into the fireplace, where the alcohol crackled as it burned.

"Potter, I'm going to strangle you!" she yelled as James looked on, vaguely entertained. "You always think you can do absolutely anything you want, don't you? You and Black, always strutting down the hallway with your pathetic little fanclub trailing behind you, watching to play with your stupid, messed up hair, and how you think you're so damn witty all the time and expect the rest of us to laugh every time you open your mouth -- "

He placed his hands on her, steadying her. "So I've heard, but what you need to do is not to rant but to rest, preferably for a very long time."

"I don't -- I don't need to rest. I'm just getting started."

But James had already placed her arm around his shoulder and began to lead her, one careful step at a time, toward his dormitory.

"Oh, and you know really makes me mad?" she asked as they made their way up the spiral staircase. She lurched unexpectedly to the right, and he gritted his teeth as he pulled her upright again. "I mean, really, _really_ angry?"

"Enlighten me, Evans. You rarely talk to me this much, so I suppose I should enjoy this before you, I dunno, knee me where it really hurts."

"We've been at Hogwarts in the same classes together for five years, and I've never seen you do a single minute of work, not a single one!"

"You know, that isn't entirely accurate -- "

Suddenly, she halted and glared at him. "I wouldn't be surprised if you copied that Potions essay due together straight off Remus Lupin's work ten minutes before class began."

"Actually, six feet is rather a lot of writing, so I copied it straight off Remus Lupin's work two hours before class began, see? I plan ahead."

"Oh, I have _had_ it with you!" Crossing her arms, she stopped her foot against the stone. The sound echoed around them as she stuttered through her words. "I don't even know what I am doing here with you, Potter. _I -- hate -- you_."

The words hung between them uncomfortably. James knew that she was not in a normal state of mind, that hatred was perhaps not a bad way of describing her feelings toward her, but to hear her actually say them -- he rubbed his stomach, which had contracted painfully.

"Well," he began slowly, placing his arm around her and forcing her up a few more stairs until they entered the quiet of the fifth-year boys' dormitory, "I understand, though I hope you'll one day change your mind. But someone has to take care of you tonight, even if it just me."

"This isn't my room," she slurred.

"No, it isn't, but I landed right on my arse last time I tried to get into the girl's dormitory and it hurt for days. Bloody founders," he added in an undertone.

"What are you doing, Potter? I am _not_ sleeping with you."

"Although it is most tempting, I am not going to sleep with you. You look like you could vomit at any moment."

Flinging the curtains of his bed aside, he carefully deposited Lily on top of his covers, where her eyes almost immediately fluttered shut and her body rose and fell with the slow rhythm of her breathing.

"Better, Evans?" he asked, sitting down on the bed next to her. She mumbled something indistinct; James assumed it to mean something like agreement. "Right, so I'll just sleep on the sofa in the common room, then?"

When she did not fire anything back at him, he assumed that she was at last safely unconscious. Suppressing his yawn with a smile, James stood up and stretched. He had hardly taken a few steps forward, though, when he realized that he had not done as he should have and properly wished her goodnight. So he returned to her side, whispered the necessary words in her ear, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and then dashed out of the room before he could dwell upon what he had just done.

Behind his disappearing form, Lily stirred, sighing, an accidental smile playing with her lips in sleep.


End file.
